Chestnut Grove was an 18th-century

plantation house A plantation house is the main house of a plantation, often a substantial farmhouse, which often serves as a symbol for the plantation as a whole. Plantation houses in the Southern United States and in other areas are known as quite grand and ...

on the

Pamunkey River The Pamunkey River is a tributary of the York River, about long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed April 1, 2011 in eastern Virginia in the United States. Via the York Ri ...

near New Kent Court House in

New Kent County New Kent County is a county in the southeastern part of the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 United States census, its population was 22,945. Its county seat is New Kent. New Kent County is located east of the Greater Richmond Region ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Chestnut Grove is best known as the

birthplace The place of birth (POB) or birthplace is the place where a person was born. This place is often used in legal documents, together with name and date of birth, to uniquely identify a person. Practice regarding whether this place should be a cou ...

Martha Washington Martha Dandridge Custis Washington (June 2, 1731 Old Style, O.S. – May 22, 1802) was the wife of George Washington, who was the first president of the United States. Although the title was not coined until after her death, she served as the ...

, wife of

George Washington George Washington (, 1799) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot (American Revoluti ...

, and the first

First Lady of the United States First Lady of the United States (FLOTUS) is a title typically held by the wife of the president of the United States, concurrent with the president's term in office. Although the first lady's role has never been Code of law, codified or offici ...

. Martha Washington was born in the east room of the mansion.

History

The two-story frame house consisting of six rooms was originally built around 1730. It was first inhabited by prominent Virginia planter

John Dandridge Col. John Dandridge of Chestnut Grove (14 July 170031 August 1756) was a colonel, planter, politician, and Clerk of New Kent County, Virginia, from 1730 to 1756. He may be best known as the father of Bartholomew Dandridge and the first First L ...

and his wife Frances Jones. The couple raised their eight children, including

, there. It was at Chestnut Grove that Martha married her first husband,

Daniel Parke Custis Daniel Parke Custis (October 15, 1711 – July 8, 1757) was an American planter and politician who was the first husband of Martha Dandridge. After his death, his widow, Martha Dandridge Custis married George Washington, who later became the fir ...

, on 15 May 1750. In 1768, Martha Washington's younger brother

Bartholomew Dandridge Bartholomew Dandridge (25 December 1737 – 18 April 1785) was an early American planter, lawyer and Patriot (American Revolution), patriot. He represented New Kent County, Virginia, New Kent County in the House of Burgesses, all five Virginia Re ...

sold Chestnut Grove and its accompanying . Colonel Richard Pye Cooke then purchased the mansion in 1840. At that time, the Chestnut Grove estate contained . Unlike neighboring plantation homes, Chestnut Grove continued to serve as a residence for 200 years in its original state until it burned down in November 1926.

Architecture

Chestnut Grove's architectural details survive due to old photographs and sketches. The mansion was a two-story frame structure with a

hip roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downward to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope, with variants including Tented roof, tented roofs and others. Thus, a hipped roof has no gables or other ve ...

and a chimney at either end. It also contained a

basement A basement is any Storey, floor of a building that is not above the grade plane. Especially in residential buildings, it often is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the Furnace (house heating), furnace, water heating, ...

which ran the length of the mansion. The interior of Chestnut Grove was plain and paneled in pine.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chestnut Grove (Plantation) Houses in New Kent County, Virginia Dandridge family (Virginia) Plantation houses in Virginia Burned houses in the United States